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Tuesday, February 09, 2016

When I first began composing this post, I had a robot (Shaunthe Sweep) scooting across the floor in an attempt to gather the husky-tumble
weeds snowballing around the periphery of my living room. A loaf of bread was
kneading, rising, and set to bake itself in a machine on my counter top.
Another appliance was washing my clothes and its twin was drying some towels.

And me? With all that help, you might imagine me poised in
front of my computer, feet propped on an ottoman, fingers poised at the
keyboard for a little reflective writing. Far from it. I was making soup, the
old fashioned way, complete with homemade vegetable stock and diced
veggies—albeit via the food processor.

But I wasn’t relaxed—the machines hadn’t afforded me the
luxury of cooking a dinner in peace—I had 500 other things to do and think
about. Sure, I could have popped the lid off some canned soup—but that’s not
the point here.

The issue is that regardless of the advancements of which we
avail ourselves we will always be stressed; we will never “catch up” because
there is, simply TOO MUCH: too much information, too many opportunities, too
many choices: and no more time than we’ve ever had.

We’ve long past the point of being amazed by advancements:
instead, we’ve become enslaved. We NEED the mechanical advantage just to feel
we’ve got a shot at “having it all.”

And I have always wanted it all. Everything. All of it. I
don’t want to miss a thing.

But I am.

I’m missing the joy of a slow simmer, the luxury of
listening to more than a sound bite, the beauty of being fully present in a
single moment that’s not intersecting with a thousand images, data, posts, and
offers competing for their fair nanosecond of my brainpower (and
i-can’t-miss-the-chance-to-see-the-potentially-life-altering-information-contained-therein).

So on this Fat Tuesday, I’ve decided for the next 40 days, I want less; less clutter, less
pressure, less screen time, less input. I want fewer distractions and more
interactions.

So here’s the plan:

Each day, I’m doing two things-divesting and investing.

Every day I am going to find something to get rid of: sell
on Craigslist, take to the thrift shop, or, if necessary toss in the trash. I’m
going to divest myself of things that get in the way of my breathing room—I am
going to literally make physical space.

I’m also going to invest: in freeing my mind—giving myself
some mental space, following pretty much the same pattern. I’m going to say no
(toss) one unneeded activity (a TV show, a facebook surfing session, some other
junk on some other screen) and make some mental space: for reflection,
rejuvenation, connection to the Creator.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Just popping in for a minute to share a recent piece that was published in Sunday's Daily Press. In addition to the link, I am pasting the article below--just in case--as my husband tried the link last night and got a pop up that obscured the content.

In July, I returned to writing columns for the DP as a small piece of some big writing plans. I will update in the future, but for now, join me out on the AT for a few minutes?

Hike can be a personal religious journey

For the past three Augusts, my husky, Audrey, and I have joined my friend, Lisa, to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail. Known by hikers simply as the AT, the trail starts in Georgia and ends in Maine, covering more than 2,100 miles of pristine forest.

The path is marked by tree trunks sporting 2-inch by 6-inch painted rectangles known as "white blazes." It winds through swaths of thick forest and up rocky mountains: a thin, well worn ribbon of compressed earth.

For me, the AT provides a solid visual for the "narrow way" Jesus spoke of in Matthew 7:14: "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. " Accordingly, conventions of trekking this narrow path provide insight into my Christian walk.

It is difficult to spend much time on the AT without hearing the mantra "hike your own hike," a sentiment frequently etched into the walls of shelters or tables with the shorthand HYOH.

HYOH is intended to serve as a reminder that your hike is just that — your own personal journey. Countless others have gone ahead of you, and multitudes more will follow — but your journey happens in relative solitude.

You decide how many miles to cover, and when to take a zero day (AT lingo for days off, sometimes expressed as, "I took a zero"). You decide what and how much you'll carry. You choose what you'll eat (a jar of Nutella, a jar of peanut butter and a spoon works for me. Don't judge. It's my hike.) You pick your travel companions (if any). It's your call whether or not you'll even talk, as we discovered upon encountering a lone hiker who had taken a vow of silence.

Philippians 2:12 is the spiritual corollary to HYOH. Paul admonished the church at Phillipi to "work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling," the idea being that he wouldn't always be there to tell them what to do: their journey had to be theirs.

A lot of freedom is implied in the idea of "working out" our own spiritual journey, but it's a freedom mainstream Christianity does not often embrace. Spend much time on the Vacation Bible School circuit or in Sunday School and you'll hear a lot of onward Christian soldiers marching rank-and-file in the Lord's army, as though the spiritual walk was one long, standard-issue group march to the Promised Land.

It's a mentality that seems to be shifting from what I imagine as its team-work, body-of-Christ intent into a sort of group-think aimed at the issuing of statements and policy about who is on and who is off the path. The focus turns, then, on the policing of a group march rather than the responsibilities of a personal journey.

The fact is, the narrow way can't accommodate a platoon marching to a common cadence. Its very design implies the singular journey, a dynamic experience that New Testament writers compared not only to the military, but also athletics and marriage, all apt comparisons that speak to skills required for varying facets of the trip.

A lifelong journey on the narrow path requires the discipline of a soldier, the endurance of an athlete, and the commitment of a spouse.

On the AT, there are times when the HYOH concept is misused as an excuse for poor etiquette, destructive behavior, or wonton irresponsibility. Likewise, Christians cannot ignore the "fear and trembling" aspect of working out our salvation, which involves a relentless policing of our own actions, even as we respect the differences in other's journeys.

There is only one narrow way, but it is a storied path, designed for infinite adventures.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

“I will eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every
character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity. ~
Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale”

.....just saying, dream crushing troll,
just saying.

I have been using social media for a long time: MySpace,
when it was a thing, Facebook, from as far back as when a .edu email address
was required to create an account, and blog that goes back a decade.

Most of my experiences on social media have been
positive—partially because I am extremely careful of who I friend, and also
because I don’t put up controversial posts just for the experience of watching
the ensuing carnage as my former students, various clergy members, and friends
from all over the political spectrum chew the matter to complete pulp.

But statistically, I suppose, it was bound to happen. You
can only comment on so many friends' posts before somehow, a troll sidles in with an acidic variant of opinion/advice/commentary designed to make
himself appear pretty big and badass, and everyone else small and stupid.

A dear friend of mine, a brilliant aspiring writer, posted
an breathtaking bit of stream-of-conscious prose. It was beautiful and made me proud
to know her. I commented publically on the work, noting that something in her
style was reminiscent of the great beat writers. Because I, myself, was writing
stream-of-conscious praise and encouragement, I made the unfortunate mistake of
describing the beats as exhibiting “raw, unedited emotion.”

Out of nowhere, a troll sprang from the deep underbelly of
the internet, discrediting my friend's work along with my analysis of it. He
made it clear that he saw no beat influence in her work, and basically
stripped me naked in front of the whole internet by producing a photo of a book
describing all of the laborious edits of particular beat writer. He pointed out
that this beat—Ginsberg—was “educated like a boss... and made an incredible
amount of edits to his work,” using this as a foundation to discredit my
friend’s work and to embarrass me. By this time, he’d looked at my public profile
(which I am still trying to figure out how to edit down to barer bones than it
is already) and found out that I was an adjunct, made some disparaging comments
about my rank, and then ended with : “How can you educate others? Learn about
literature before you steer impressionable minds.”He went solo on this rant—no one engaged—he just kept going
until he burned himself out.

Meanwhile, my husband did a full background check
on this cat (wait? Am I slipping into beat-esque verbiage? I am evidently not qualified to know…) googling and the like, and discovered via Linked In that
The Troll is seeking employ in the education field. I was tempted, for a moment, to sign up for
an account just to see if they do commenting at that forum because if there’s
anything I can say or do to keep this jerk out of a classroom, then sign me
up. But the thing is? You can start a cyber war with these kind of people.
Clearly adept at turning up information to use as weaponry, they wage the sort of war in which a professional should not engage.

So instead, we’ll turn our attention to this gem my husband
unearthed from the guy’s college newsletter:

Advice to underclassmen:

“Do not let the people close to you define who you are. Separate
yourself from your family and friends , you are your own person - spend college
defining yourself as an individual, you have no other time in life to be so
detached from your roots."

May my talented writer friend ignore every other thing this
troll said and hang on to the above.

Don’t let this loser define who you are. Separate yourself
from his poison, and the venom of his kind. Insulate yourself from harsh
comments; learn to let them roll off your back like the sweat from your
passion. Bulbous-headed big-shots like this guy aren’t confined to
cyberbullying—they lurk in high school classrooms, university seminars, and MFA
Workshops. Heck, I had one for a professor just last year. He tried to make me
feel like I was nothing, but you know what? My lacerated skin’s growing back
tougher and stronger.

So beat, troll—or, if you prefer, keep at it. Keep feeding
us material. We’ll swallow it whole, break it down, and spew it out in prose
that will strip you of your smug one-lines and leave you, mouth agape and
fingers frozen—with no words to cover your naked shame.

Friday, February 06, 2015

It’s just after 3:00 which, according to Sartre, means it’s
too early or too late for anything—a truism to which I’ve fervently held since
the very first time I heard it.

It’s too late to have the house clean before my husband gets
home, too late to have something nice simmering on the stove or in the crock
pot. It’s too late to work out after class, like I thought I might. It’s too
late to make much of a dent in my research today.

But on the other hand, its too early to do much about
whatever dinner will be (order in? Go out? Forage through the fridge?) It’s
also too early to kick back and settle in. Too early for pajama pants, or to
pour a glass of wine. It’s too early for TV. It’s also too early for any of
myriad potential evening game-changers to hit: spur of the moment invites, last
minute decisions to shop, or dine, or watch something, somewhere.

It’s simply not time for anything…except maybe the one thing
there never seems to be enough time for these days: writing. Oh, how I wish for
3:00 to happen a little more often, and to last a whole lot longer.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

A lot of you know that
up until Friday I worked for two universities: my alma mater, a state school,
and a tiny private Bible college. In January, I will only be working at one of
these institutions. What follows is an open letter to the students I’m leaving,
as it is important to me that they know why I can’t be there for them in
January.

Dear Students,

Now that you’ve turned in your finals and we’ve wrapped up
all of our debates (Resolved; the installation of toilet paper is not a good
argument paper topic) and played our last round of grammar trivia (did you
spend all of your homework passes?) it’s time for me to share the news that
this is the end. When you return from break, I won’t be there to complete in
Comp II the work we began this semester in Comp I.I won’t be there for the dozen of you who
made it through my Basic English this fall, to help you find your voices and
become strong academic writers.

What you didn’t know was that late this semester I was
working my way through a process to leave the ranks of adjunct teaching to fill
an imminent vacancy for a full time English professor. A real one-woman show.
These were the days when you were asking me questions about why you didn’t have
access to better research sources and why the course sequencing didn’t follow a
logical path and I told you—barely able to mask the excitement in my voice—that
things were beginning to change.

This was the time you saw me a bit more around campus and
some of you ate with me in the dining hall or sat with me in the lounge and you
told me how cool it was that I was “starting to hang out” with you. I thought
it was cool, too. In fact, I was already mentally decorating the office where
we were going to enjoy weekly coffee bars, tutoring sessions, and a revolving
open door ethos of conversation and encouragement. It was an exciting time.

Then something went wrong.

I was told that one of the last steps in the hiring process
was to read and support a recently drafted marriage and sexuality statement.
And that’s how I became a happily married suburban mom who was denied
employment over an issue of sexuality.

When a tiny Christian school determines that the time has
come to issue a statement on such subject matter, they want to make sure the
result has some muscle; that the verbiage was crafted by people who know black
from white, and are adept at spotting the taint of grey when they see it.

These statements are typically thorough, with a tendency to
read like a who’s who list of sexual deviance; a catalogue of possible ills.
Words like “repugnant” are bandied about.

I read this particular statement with a sinking feeling that
settled in the depths of my gut. I didn’t need to think it over because to my
eyes the document—literally a black and white treatise—appeared as one big blob
of grey.

They were expecting wholehearted endorsement, to stand with
them in confidently labeling the entire catalog of variant human conditions as
sin. But I couldn’t. See, every item listed represents the state of a
struggling human; someone dealing with issues I do not know enough about to
simply judge with a nod of assent.

So I gave the only true answer I could.

I said I didn’t know.

I said that in a world where genetics has changed to the
tune of one in 100 births (about the same incidence as the birth of a redhead) resulting
in some variation of gender difference beyond the male/female lines with which
we’re comfortable –that I don’t know where the line is between “holy” and
“unwholesome.”

I said I didn’t know if someone who was born female, looks
female and feels female is doomed to a life of celibacy when a routine marriage
blood test turns up a (surprise!) Y chromosome.

I said I don’t know exactly what God expects from someone
who was born ‘clearly” female but sprouts testicles and a penis in adolescence.

I said that not only did I not know—I was OK with not
knowing because God didn’t give me the job to know, but to love. I said that my
job was to guide people closer to Christ so they could work the details out
with him.

Everyone assumed I must have misunderstood. After all, no
good Christian mom sending her own son through Bible College could really “not
know” her stance on such a key issue. So they spent some time “exploring” the
issues with me, and asked me to try again.

I said I still didn’t know.

And because I don’t know, I can’t be your teacher any more.

I can’t learn from your stories (because, statistically,
even at this tiny, tiny school, some of you are dealing with issues from the
Catalogue of Ills, alone, in pain, and desperate for a listening ear).

Because I don’t know enough about your specific deviation
from the norm to label and judge it, we can’t sort it out together. I can’t
bring you into my office and give you a cup of hot chocolate, and tell you that
it’s going to be okay, that I know it will be because God made you and loves
you just the way you are. I can’t tell you that even though I don’t know
exactly what God wants for your future, I know that if you seek him first with
all of your heart you will find your answers and whatever they are they will
bring you joy.

I can’ t offer you this type of comfort and support because
everyone is afraid.

Your school does not know how to handle these realities, so
they are joining the stampede of Christian organizations pounding a path of
retreat from issues that challenge our traditional understanding of sexuality
and fortifying themselves behind walls of impenetrable statements.

But this very wall is the thing that makes me not afraid any
more. I know that as more and more Christian institutions succumb to the
pressure of issuing formal statements of stance, that it is unlikely that I
will ever work in a Christian environment again. I reek now of compromise, of
weakness. I represent The Thing everyone is running from.

Please don’t misunderstand: your school did nothing wrong in
not hiring me. I support their freedom to hire or fire on the basis of anything
they deem important: I vehemently support that right. What I am saying is that
I find it very sad that this is the issue they have chosen adopt as a
line-in-the-sand-you’re-with-us-or-against-us matter of policy.

I am sad for you, and I am sad for me, because we are all
lesser for it.

And there’s nothing I can do but work outside the system,
now, as a voice who now knows, first hand, the pain of being refused employment
for something I just can’t change.